FAMOUS EVENTS ON CHRISTMAS: APOLLO 8
(Message by Tanny Keng)
1. Famous Events On Christmas
a) While Christmas is traditionally viewed as a time for family gatherings, gift giving and church services, the holiday has also coincided with some of history's most crucial events. The “most wonderful time of the year” has been interrupted by legendary battles, coronations of kings and scientific breakthroughs, and it even helped inspire one of the most famous wartime truces on record.
b) Here is one of them.
2. Apollo 8 (1968)
a) As part of 1968’s Apollo 8 mission, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders spent the night before Christmas orbiting the moon. The operation was originally planned to test out the lunar module — later used in the Apollo 11 moon landing — in Earth’s orbit. But when work on the module fell behind schedule, NASA ambitiously changed the mission plan to a lunar voyage. Apollo 8 went on to result in a series of breakthroughs for manned space flight: The three astronauts became the first men to leave Earth’s gravitational pull, the first to orbit the moon, the first to view all of Earth from space and the first to see the dark side of the moon.
b) Apollo 8 is perhaps best remembered today for the broadcast the three astronauts made when they entered the moon’s orbit on Christmas Eve. As viewers were shown pictures of the moon and Earth from lunar orbit, Borman, Lovell and Anders read the opening lines of the book of Genesis from the Bible. The broadcast — which ended with the famous line “Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth” — became one of the most watched television events in history.
The End ...
1. Famous Events On Christmas a) While Christmas is traditionally viewed as a time for family gatherings, gift giving and church services, the holiday has also coincided with some of history's most crucial events. The “most wonderful time of the year” has been interrupted by legendary battles, coronations of kings and scientific breakthroughs, and it even helped inspire one of the most famous wartime truces on record.
b) Here is one of them.
2. Apollo 8 (1968)
a) As part of 1968’s Apollo 8 mission, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders spent the night before Christmas orbiting the moon. The operation was originally planned to test out the lunar module — later used in the Apollo 11 moon landing — in Earth’s orbit. But when work on the module fell behind schedule, NASA ambitiously changed the mission plan to a lunar voyage. Apollo 8 went on to result in a series of breakthroughs for manned space flight: The three astronauts became the first men to leave Earth’s gravitational pull, the first to orbit the moon, the first to view all of Earth from space and the first to see the dark side of the moon.
b) Apollo 8 is perhaps best remembered today for the broadcast the three astronauts made when they entered the moon’s orbit on Christmas Eve. As viewers were shown pictures of the moon and Earth from lunar orbit, Borman, Lovell and Anders read the opening lines of the book of Genesis from the Bible. The broadcast — which ended with the famous line “Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth” — became one of the most watched television events in history.
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